


The Amber Trilogy

by Bizjube



Category: Led Zeppelin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2019-08-29 17:53:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16748836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bizjube/pseuds/Bizjube
Summary: Just a few things I thought should be written about. One is a story, one is an essay, and one is a speech.





	1. Climbing the Stairway to Heaven

_“There's a lady who's sure_  
 _All that glitters is gold_  
 _And she's buying a stairway to heaven.”_  
My hands paused in front of the canvas. The thought occurred to me in a burst of color, and it almost slipped through my fingers. The whispers were dripping with blue pigment, and it stained my mind as bubbles of air escaped her lips.   
_“When she gets there she knows_  
_If the stores are all closed_  
_With a word she will get what she came for.”_  
I thought of her. She was my everything. She, with the voice of fallen angels, was my muse. I pictured her voice, her face, her aura of cruel passion. No color nor brush stroke could capture her intensity. Tonight she would be the candle that illuminates the crypt in which I hung.   
_“There’s a sign on the wall_  
_But she wants to be sure_  
_‘Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.”_  
I picked up my brush and stared at the blood oozing from the ghost of her voice. I dipped the bristles in it and smeared the color across my new face. My own skin was blood stained, and it was with my own blood that the world started to take shape.   
_“In a tree by the brook_  
 _There's a songbird who sings,_  
 _Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.”_  
The soft whispers caressed my hand and face, assuring me that this was my purpose. I was, in that moment, a slave to her. I was only meant to carry out the bidding of my angelic master. I was devoted to the whispers.  
 _“There's a feeling I get_  
 _When I look to the west,_  
 _And my spirit is crying for leaving.”_  
Rivers fled from my eyes in agony. My body was possessed. I gave in to the demands of the whispers, letting my tears be the glittering bliss on my face. My mind, my soul, my very essence was overrun with color.  
 _“And a new day will dawn_  
 _For those who stand long_  
 _And the forests will echo with laughter.”_  
The song was ending and the brush’s weeping slowed. The song was ending. Her voice was fading, and the whispers retreated back to where they came. My mind and body had been freed, but my limbs ached with grief.  
“And if you listen very hard  
 _The tune will come to you at last.”_  
You see, the thing about my sister is that when she’s passionate about something it’s like a demon has possessed her entire body. Sinful words pass through her angelic lips like a soul leaving its shell. She lets this demon in with open arms and it is her demon that inspires me to be the gods she loves so much.  
_“And she's buying a stairway to heaven.”_


	2. Her Song Remains the Same

When asked who I wanted to be when I grew up, I always replied with “a scientist.” I had a gift for biology, and I knew it, so when I had found my passion for the ocean, I had narrowed down my answer. Marine biology has been my end goal for years, but I felt like I could do better than that. When my sister, Amber, found her passion, all I could do was follow blindly into the void. It was there, in the unwavering darkness, that I found my true path.  
It started at the beginning of my tenth grade year. Amber knew this kid who was into Led Zeppelin, and he converted her to a massive “Led-Head.” I never quite understood why she liked a blond beauty with a bulge in his pants and a heroin-addict with a violin bow, but within months she had me on the same page (pardon the pun.) I knew who the band members were and what they did. I knew that forty shots of vodka will kill a man. What I didn’t know is just how bad Amber’s passion for these men had gotten.   
When Amber bought The Song Remains the Same, Zeppelin’s concert film, in the summer of 2017, I promised I’d watch it with her. I was a fan, after all, and the way her eyes lit up made me melt. I was quietly excited for the entire week until it came in the mail. That night, she and I both shooed our parents out of the living room and set up camp. No Quarter, The Song Remains the Same, The Rain Song, and Dazed and Confused came and went with much singing and laughter, but after the scene No Comment, everything started setting in for us.  
Several hours into the film, Stairway to Heaven started playing, and when I looked at Amber halfway through the song, it struck me how hard it was for her to watch this. She was grieving for a life she would never have. The men she loved were up there on the screen, with sweat dripping down their faces. She would never get to see them like this. She would never meet Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. She would never get to see pictures of an old John Bonham. She would never get to hear them sing for her. She, who had no love for anyone else like she did for them, had been sentenced to the cruel world that will be without their presence. They were old now, and she was only thirteen. She would continue to live after them, and it scared me that she would have to grieve them as if they were family. They were family to her. They were family to me.   
Subsequently, a few weeks into my junior year I would realize just how that night had affected me. I sat and cried while I hand wrote the first of three works, Climbing the Stairway to Heaven. I cried when I typed it out, and I cry every single time I read it. I’m crying now, just knowing that I’ll have to pick up the pieces when she loses the men she loves.   
In retrospect, I don't regret my choice to be like them. I don't regret deciding to inspire like they did. I want people to see what I do and understand why I write. I write for her. I write to be her gods. I love her with everything I have, and she is, at this moment, the only muse I have ever known. Marine biology is a dream of mine, but expressing my love though writing is my undeniable talent that I am determined to cultivate. Maybe someday I can meet both of them in the middle, and produce something truly magnificent.


	3. She is the Brightest Star of All

It’s been over a year. July 1st, 2017. It’s been over a year since I sat down with her. Over a year since I watched them with her. It’s been over a year. I wrote two works on this before, and they were painful beyond belief. It was a sort of pain only brought by love. I don’t understand it. It’s a hard feeling to grasp.   
And now, this is the third in the set. Hopefully, this will be my final work on this topic, but I doubt it. There is so much time between now and when I will be done. Right now, I’m reflecting. The windows are open and the rain is falling softly outside. Led Zeppelin, the root reason why I’m writing, is playing softly from my phone beside me. She is occupied with a game and singing absentmindedly along with her boys.   
I suppose I should provide some backstory. Amber met this kid, Ryan, in 8th grade and had a bit of a crush on him He liked Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and Nirvana, so she adopted those bands and connected deeply with Zeppelin. She was obsessed. That band was hers, and god forbid someone say bad about Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham. She practically breathed their music. If you sang one lyric wrong she would shun you for the rest of the day.  
But it went deeper than that. She had such a strong emotional attachment to them, and it rubbed off on me. It made me realize something about her and about myself, and it scared me. That night a year ago, when I sat down with her to watch Led Zeppelin’s concert film, “The Song Remains The Same,” I didn’t expect to feel so strongly. 

But a year goes by so fast. She no longer loves them. She no longer carries them in her voice. She no longer sees the world in their colors. She no longer thinks in their chords. A lot can change in a year.   
There is still that nagging in the back of my mind. There is still that raw emotion that has now tucked itself away. _Be careful,_ It says. _She still loves them._  
But she doesn’t. She doesn’t hear them like she used to. She’s outgrown them. It’s sad, but I’ve accepted it. She’s moved on. I don’t understand what is happening to me. I don’t understand that feeling of vines curling around my heart and mind when I think about her faded passion. I don’t know why the feeling is there. I can’t explain it.  
I have a collection, though. I keep the songs that remind me of her passion. The songs that make me feel that pain. It’s Stairway to Heaven, by Led Zeppelin. It’s Honeybee, by Steam Powered Giraffe. It’s Low Man’s Lyric, by Metallica, but right now, It’s Sonne, by Rammstein.  
“Hier kommt die Sonne,” he warns. “Sie ist der hellste Stern von allen.”   
“Here comes the sun,” he warns. “She is the brightest star of all.”  
She is my “most.” She is my “best.” She is my “worst.” She is my “least.” She is my muse. She is my life. She is my everything. She is, above all, my sister.


	4. I'll See You On the Dark Side of the Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One hour before I turn 18.

That was not, as it turns out, the end.   
There have been a lot of things that have happened since I wrote the last installment of this series of entries. I’ve had a lot of revelations and a lot of epiphanies. It is August 10th, 2019, 12:19 am, and tomorrow is my 18th birthday.   
I’ve written about my sister for the entirety of this series thus far. I’ve written about how I love her, and how much power she holds over me. I’ve sung her songs, I’ve preached her name, I’ve devoted a piece of my soul to her. But now, I think it’s time for me to talk about myself.  
This is my last day on Earth as a 17 year old. In less than 24 hours, I am officially free. I’ve been dreading it for years, silently resisting the passage of time until I could get my feet under my body (I never did.) I never really thought I’d make it this far.  
I finished my first year of college, graduated highschool, and now I’m in a polyamorous relationship with two of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. I’ve been to Seattle, and I fell in love with the city. I’m fighting for my family to recognize and respect my gender. I’m getting a tattoo in a few weeks and I’m cutting my hair short like I’ve always wanted it. I’ll be getting second piercings in my ears sometime in the near future, and I’m finding a sense of myself.  
Why am I writing this?  
What tugged at the right strings?  
My neighbor let me borrow a Led Zeppelin cassette, and in my casual listening, The Song Remains The Same started playing. I haven’t heard that song in years, since I wrote the first piece of this puzzle.  
I’ve fallen in love with Pink Floyd’s album, Dark Side of the Moon.  
I’ve fallen in love with my partners.  
I’ve fallen in love.   
I’m in love.   
I’ve been waiting for years to be able to feel. I’ve been waiting to have something more worth fighting for. I’ve been waiting to be me again.  
I am me now.   
I’m not May.  
I’m not Callie.  
I’m not Ariel.  
I’m not Dodona.   
I’m not Adrian.  
I’m not Rose.  
I’m Robin. Whatever the hell that means. I’m me again.


End file.
